Page 64 of Malcroix Bones Academy (Bones and Shadow #1)

“I have a better use for you now, girl,” she retorted. “I’m glad now, that I didn’t manage to kill you that first night at Malcroix, because now that I have the stone, I can actually put that polluted, half-Magical body of yours to real use.”

I could only stare back at first, uncomprehending.

Then my eyes fell to the painting of Morticia La Fey. That bad feeling in my gut abruptly worsened. Weren’t there transference rituals that used the ashes of the dead?

Even their blood? The blood of relatives?

The bodies of relatives?

Their bones? With their skulls prized most of all?

“Yes.” Ankha glared triumphantly at me. “I see that school’s managed to teach you something.

” Her blue eyes shone in the candlelight, and their silvery sheen looked positively manic now.

“Great-grandmother always said she’d come back.

She needed a body with La Fey blood. I couldn’t complete the transfer without one, and I wasn’t about to use Doric. ”

I blinked at her, confused. “Doric?”

“My son,” she said coldly. “But you needn’t concern yourself about him, girl. You’ll never meet him.”

I opened my mouth, closed it, but she barely seemed to notice.

Ankha had a son?

“I’d intended to use your mother’s body, of course,” she resumed coldly.

Her eyes hardened as her gaze shifted inward.

“She wasn’t supposed to die that day. Even I hadn’t wanted that.

I’d made arrangements, paying a good deal of gold to take custody of her body not long after she got captured.

She was to be declared dead, one of the other prisoners would be blamed, and no one would be the wiser. ”

Her cold stare hardened still more.

“…But someone got over-zealous. I never did find out who.”

I felt sick. I struggled against the magical snakes, but couldn’t break their hold.

If Ankha noticed, she didn’t seem concerned.

“After Clotide died, I even considered using cousin Racyth,” she said in a brusque voice.

“But then the fool got himself killed.” Her eyes gleamed with candlelight.

She looked at me greedily in the dress and gold bodice.

“But you’ll do, girl. Even half-animal blood won’t get in the way of the magic of Morticia La Fey. ”

I wanted to believe she wasn’t serious.

Or that I misunderstood what she intended.

But I knew I wasn’t misunderstanding her.

“What was that Bones pup doing with you?” Ankha barked suddenly.

“It’s bad enough you had your hands all over Greythorne’s brat, but he was always a little off, that one, so I can’t say I was entirely surprised.

” Her stare grew piercing. “But Caelum Bones is blood heir to the movement. He’s the claimed right hand of Malefic Bones himself.

Why in the gods would a mage of that importance, from the oldest and most revered family in Magique, go anywhere near you? Why would he be touching you?”

I frowned, thrown somehow by her words.

What the hell did Ankha care about Caelum? And, given everything else the psychotic witch just said, not to mention what she planned to do to me, why were warning bells suddenly going off in my head about how to answer that question?

“He doesn’t like me,” was all I could think to say.

Ankha let out a harsh laugh. “He likes some part of you, well enough.”

She stepped closer, eyeing my body under the restraining snakes.

“His father won’t thank me for letting you anywhere near that bloodline.

” Ankha paused to toss a handful of magical powder over the pentagram and circle.

Silver and red smoke erupted in a dense cloud over the blood and ash-covered skull.

“…I’ll have to tell him, of course,” she added under her breath, lips pursed.

“That can’t be helped. He has plans for that boy of his. Big plans. If you had any idea…”

She trailed, and glared at me.

“Well, nothing to be done about it now. He’ll discipline the brat.

Malefic might even thank me for it, if that man-child of his is harboring rebellious notions, and his father hadn’t picked up on it.

Anyway, the blow will be softened after I take care of you.

I doubt even Malefic will object to his son fraternizing with Morticia La Fey… even in that body.”

She glared at me through the writhing cloud of smoke.

“If there’s any chance that young Bones might’ve impregnated you?”

I choked on the word. “Impregnated me? Caelum?”

Ankha’s eyes darkened more. “Caelum? You dare to be so familiar with him?”

I opened my mouth, thought better of it, and closed it.

My aunt glared at me only a few seconds longer, then turned back to the circle, and began muttering words in a language I’d never heard.

I knew it had to be one of the magical languages, but for most of those, while there was no exact equivalent on human Earth, there were echoes of Latin, Sanskrit, Ancient Runes, Ancient Egyptian, even Mandarin and English.

This didn’t sound like any of those.

These words sounded harsher, more guttural.

“Sarpah aatma chorah… sarpah aatma chorah… pibatah hadapane rakt…”

I tried to use my sun primal to translate, but either it couldn’t, or too much of the drug remained in my system. A wave of cold, clammy presence enveloped me as Ankha continued to speak, as if I’d been thrust into the dark water of an icy lake.

The green powder in the lines of the pentagram began to glow.

I struggled harder against the silver snakes as that nauseating, disturbing presence grew. Revulsion brought too much saliva to my mouth. I had to get out of there. Some part of me panicked. I needed to get the hell away from what I could feel coming.

A dark, cloudy, apparition-like shape began to rise sickeningly out of the center of the pentagram.

It writhed upwards as if searching, seeking to connect with something else.

Ankha’s vocal tone changed as the cloudy form grew more and more distinct.

Her words grew harsher, more guttural. Her magic slid through the wolf primal that stood on the back of the armchair Archie always favored to watch his cartoons.

The primal’s lips lifted in a snarl, its eyes and silver fur tinged green in the light of the pentagram.

My chest clenched as the wraith-like shape changed direction.

It stretched out past the boundary of the flaming circle.

It began moving deliberately towards me.

I screamed. I threw my whole body backwards in pure instinct, using every ounce of my strength. Everything in me told me not to let that ghost-like presence touch me. Everything in me told me to run, to do whatever I had to do, if it meant getting away.

The silver snakes tightened around my arms and legs.

I lost my balance and toppled, landing hard on the carpet by the fireplace hearth.

My knees flared in pain, but I barely noticed.

I dragged myself along the rug in a writhing crawl.

I couldn’t bend my legs or arms well enough to crawl for real, so I threw my body forward as best I could, straining against the hissing snakes.

I reached the hearthstone, and tried to use the rough edge to rub them off my arms.

I focused everything I had on my sun primal.

I begged it to help me.

The gold-white light flared, blindingly bright, and, shockingly, the snakes on my arms and legs loosened.

Once I got them loose enough, I managed to force them off, pushing out more of my magic to help my fumbling hands and kicking feet.

The instant I got free for real, I used the fireplace to struggle to my feet.

I kicked the snakes away when they writhed towards me again, and looked around frantically for the black, wraith-like cloud.

The mirror. I had to get to the damned mirror.

Now.

I fought not to think about Archie, about the fact he might be dead already, or I might be abandoning him here to a fate worse than death. Logically, my mind told me I wouldn’t do him any good if I was dead, too. I had to get out, bring help back as fast as I possibly could.

Forsooth. I had to get to Forsooth.

I had to convince him to come back here with me.

Or at least convince him to send someone.

The chance felt beyond remote. It also felt like the only one I had.

I saw a ripple in the air from the shadow and darted to one side, avoiding something like black smoke that crashed into the mantle clock behind me, splintering it to pieces.

I tried to use the glowing white-gold sun to push the apparition back, but my primal swirled and sparked wildly, still affected by the drug, and I could feel the dark presence closing.

I ducked and barely missed being hit by it a second time, and the black cloud slammed into a painting on the wall.

Ankha was still chanting, and the cloud-like form was solidifying into more of a human shape. I could see a face there now, in the black clouds.

Red, glowing eyes stared at me greedily.

Black hair waved around her head like she was underwater.

A dress, similar to the Victorian one I remembered from the older painting of her I’d seen in that library book, grew faintly visible around her wispy form.

The magic coming off the red-eyed shadow-witch grew more charged. It made my skin buzz with teeth-vibrating pain. I could feel the power there. I could feel it all over my body like a high electric current. I could feel how badly it wanted to swallow me.

Let me in, granddaughter, a sickly voice coaxed. You want this. You want this power. I feel it. Half breed or no, you’re one of mine, even more than those few others who survived. More than her. Let me in, and I’ll share it with you?

I darted sideways, dodging her next leap.

That time, I didn’t stop. I ran, all-out, jumping over the hearth for the gold-framed mirror.

The mirror was my only chance. Either I made it there, and somehow got through, or my deranged great-great-grandmother and aunt were going to murder me, or erase me, or imprison my soul, or all three of those things.

I shoved off the stone mantle, barely sliding past the smoky silhouette of Morticia La Fey.

Ankha’s hands rose, somewhere in my periphery.

As I approached the mirror, she chanted out another set of magic-infused words. I realized I knew them, that I’d heard them before.

Ankha was trying to get inside my mind.

Worse, as the older witch’s magic slammed into me, halting my limbs, stopping my breath, jerking my heart sideways in my chest, I realized she was going to succeed.